Steve Popper: Knicks can't rest on their laurels in final four games of regular season
Knicks' Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns react after a three-point shot by guard Tyler Kolek during the fourth quarter against the Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden on Friday. Credit: Brad Penner
In an ideal world, the Knicks, winners of at least 50 games for the third straight season, would be coasting through the final four games of the regular season. They would be resting, letting their bumps and bruises heal, giving opportunities to bench players and readying for the postseason.
But instead, starting Monday in Atlanta, the Knicks have an imposing obstacle course to navigate and reasons to treat those games almost like playoff games.
The Knicks are in third place in the Eastern Conference, 2 1⁄2 games behind the Celtics, with a chance to catch Boston in second place and assure themselves of home-court advantage if they meet in the conference semifinals. They also have a chance to drop behind the Cavaliers, who are 1 1⁄2 games behind them, and fall into fourth — meaning a possible conference semifinal matchup with the Pistons, who have dominated them in three meetings this season.
But it’s not just playoff positioning at stake for the Knicks. As amazing as it may sound for a 50-win team, the Knicks have not beaten a team with a winning record in a month. The last one was on March 6 in Denver. Since then they have lost five straight games to playoff or play-in tournament-bound teams but maintained their place in the standings thanks to a run of the schedule that brought them on a tour of the lottery-bound tanking teams. They went 9-0.
The playoffs won’t include any matchups against the likes of those NBA Draft-watchers, so the Knicks’ remaining schedule — a final four of a game at Atlanta and home games against Boston, Toronto and Charlotte — matters, too.
When the Knicks lost three straight games against winning teams on their most recent road trip, Josh Hart called the trip finale in Memphis a must-win game — which seemed like an exaggeration with the Grizzlies fielding a team of mostly G League call-ups and two-way contract players. But Mike Brown didn’t mind his team approaching the game, any game, that way.
“I’m OK if our players have that attitude, for sure,” he said. “You try to manufacture pressure on yourself, especially during the regular season. I said this back during our NBA Cup run, it was a good run because it helped us manufacture pressure during that time of the year when you’re just playing games and you don’t have the pressure of, OK, we lose and we’re out.
“So it’s good to have that mindset. I don’t mind that our players have that mindset. For me, it’s the same thing — trying to get better every time we step on the floor, trying to see if we can play with some consistency on both ends of the floor. And all while trying to get a win. But I’m looking at those things as much as just saying it’s a must-win.”
Moving up in the standings won’t be easy. Even if they can beat Boston at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, the Knicks will need to make up another 1 1⁄2 games in the standings; a tie would go to the Knicks because they would hold the season-series edge (even with a loss, the Knicks hold a tiebreaker by virtue of division record).
The Knicks have the tiebreaker against the Cavaliers, but Cleveland has three games remaining against tanking teams and only a pair of games with Atlanta as true tests.
Postseason positioning has its own problems. After so much talk about the weakness of the Eastern Conference, there are no sure things in front of the Knicks in the opening round. That’s nothing new: Remember the fight the Knicks had last season to survive Detroit in the first round.
Entering Saturday night’s action, Philadelphia was lined up as the Knicks’ opponent. Despite a season filled with injuries, a 25-game suspension of Paul George and Joel Embiid publicly debating with the front office about his desire to play, a 76ers squad at full strength is a troubling proposition.
George has had a chance to rest and heal and has put up huge numbers since returning. Embiid insists he’s healthy, and because there are no back-to-back sets of games in the playoffs, he’ll have the rest he needs. And the guard pairing of uber-athletic Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe has caused problems for the Knicks.
Atlanta and Toronto line up as the other teams most likely to face the Knicks, with Charlotte moving quickly into the picture. Atlanta and Charlotte have been playing as well as almost any team in the NBA of late; the Knicks have a 13-game winning streak against Toronto.
What the Knicks insist is that it’s not about the opponent anyway, instead focusing on their own play. And that means they’re just fine with a late regular-season challenge.
“Well, we don’t want to turn on the switch,” Jalen Brunson said. “We kind of want to be trending in the right direction as we come down to the end. It’s clearly things that we still need to work on, and I’ve always said we don’t want to be a finished product, that we want to continue to get better and better and better, even in the playoffs.
“There’s obviously a lot of things that we still need to work on as a team. If you want to do the things that we said we want to do, then we’ll do them.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
